Group 1 Idea Pitch Round 2

Develop a system idea inspired by the world you have crafted to pitch to the class using the following rubric:

1. The goal. Identify the core nugget that explains what your pitch is trying to achieve.

Provide reliable primary sources to a world where news providers have become wildly biased.

This is intended to resist the government’s ability to modify/selectively share public surveillance videos to push their agenda. Protection against video manipulation.

We want to make sure that the people have a similar tool set to the government when it comes to surveillance as a check.

2. The idea. This is a version of your 5-second pitch.

Opt-in cameras that feed a database of film that is available to anyone and everyone who cares to look at it.

Live tracking of which cameras are getting the most hits — i.e. where stuff is probably happening

Only indexing variables is geographical position, time, most viewers

3. The problem. This is a modified version of a pitch set-up: as it provides a framework for the idea. Perhaps you can have a tight bulleted list of data points that identify the problem or short, realistic scenarios that expresses why these problems are important.

Biased news and increased video surveillance coverage by government entities. The potential for video manipulation under possibly incriminating circumstances

4. The audience. Who will this idea appeal to? What is the profile of the potential customer/user/agent? What is the profile of the non-customer? (Who would never ever be interested/horrified/angered by this idea?)

The general public is the target audience for the project. If governments or corporations want to opt-in to their own camera, they can do so, they are just held to the same standards as everyone else.

5. The approach. How does the idea work? Explain, at a high level, the outline for how the idea will be implemented – background research and methods.

People can use cameras to broadcast live video to a remote database, creating a network of live videos that’s available to the general public. There will be an interface online where you can switch between video feeds. The view will be a map with different nodes representing cameras. These nodes will display the number of viewers at a given time. Also, the feeds will be linkable. The entity storing these videos will analyze videos using algorithms to require that uploads are live and not being tampered with, and the more cameras opt in, the more reliable the feeds, because you can cross check video feeds against each other. People will have to use approved cameras, built by the same entity who maintains the network. This will help ensure the security and reliability of the network by making it harder to “hack”

6. Challenges & Unknowns. What are the big open issues that need to be resolved, or are questions a reasonable person would ask? If you were being pitched to, what questions would you have? Identify them and demonstrate you’ve thought about those issues – ideally with a credible (if fuzzy) plan, or plan for a plan, for resolving.

The materiality of video (people are inherently disconnected from the camera)